Our society is heavily reliant on a substance that is not renewable; it comes from the ground and can take thousands of years for the earth to create. We burn oil in several forms for myriad purposes; if there is something out there that doesn’t burn oil, we can be assured that it took oil to produce or transport. There is no getting around it; we use it for everything and anything, and our lives depend on it.

The use of energy throughout the world has a huge impact on global ecological sustainability, whether it is fossil fuels, hydro electricity, wind energy, solar power or any other method used to create it. To achieve sustainability we must find more efficient ways to create and use the energy that we have now; the future depends on it.

How do you become a dominant player in any industry? Einstein once said that, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” To be a pioneer is to embrace that philosophy wholeheartedly, for imagination is a catalyst for invention and invention is what sets you apart from the masses.

With over 100 years of continuous operation, Nelco Mechanical Limited is a multi-trade contractor with a great deal of responsibility – that of supplying many of the “hidden” systems that keep the buildings we occupy everyday functioning the way they should.

When speaking of a building’s environmental sustainability, it has become common practice to describe its green “envelope. The outer shell of a building, separating the interior from what lies beyond, the envelope includes such elements as the roof, walls, foundation, and floors. All of these features can be “greened in various ways – and in previous issues we’ve explored both green roofs and living walls – yet the installation of windows is akin to punching giant holes in that envelope.

In 2000, I began working in marketing for a software development company that was designing applications for the Palm™ handheld computing device that were set to revolutionize the consumer packaged goods industry. At the time, mobile phones were just used for making phones calls, and BlackBerrys® were the “cutting edge” device that allowed users to text…